It hit home over SKYPE while I was giving a piano lesson to Australia today that THUMBS have usurped too much power! In their octave by octave advance through scales and arpeggios, they've become conspicuously Napoleonic and territorial, setting up roadblocks that deter longer fingers of each hand from individually passing over and around them… Continue reading Curbing Thumb Power!
"...No matter what the mood to be conveyed, or how sensitive the playing, it is the rhythm that binds the expression." Mildred Portney Chase, Just Being at the Piano Most students, including myself, sometimes find ourselves running away from our initially centered, fundamental beat through scales, which causes an uncomfortable disruption of the phrase. And… Continue reading Centering the beat for cohesion in scale playing
This evening Big Mike, whose hands are impressively large, finessed various types of staccato. He proved that elasticity is more influential than finger length (and related) in producing clearly articulated notes in diverse colors. We started with a B minor (Natural form scale) enlisting a forearm FORTE staccato, then continued to a soft range, still… Continue reading Piano Technique: Practicing 4 varieties of detached notes
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